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[1] From: Al Magary <
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Date: February 5, 2013 7:09:11 PM EST

Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3

[2] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: February 6, 2013 2:36:21 AM EST

Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3

[3] From: Herbert Weil <
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Date: February 5, 2013 11:29:27 PM EST

Subject: Poor Richard

[4] From: Ton Hoenselaars <
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Date: February 6, 2013 3:09:51 PM EST

Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: R3

[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------

From: Al Magary <
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Date: February 5, 2013 7:09:11 PM EST

Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3

Almost every article I read about the discovery and identification of Richard III’s bones mixed up the historical person and the theatrical character. Perhaps the flourishing of new scholarship that Ricardians hope for will clean up the real Richard’s reputation a bit, but it won’t—and shouldn’t—affect the stage Richard, our R3.

Sure, I read Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time—terrific detective novel—long ago and got the idea that the history was written by the victors, the Tudors, including Thomas More and Edward Hall, whence Shakespeare. The Tudors could only gain by portraying Richard as the devil’s spawn and indicting him for the murder of the Princes in the Tower (and worse).

But that’s historiography and interpretation of scanty evidence on Richard of Gloucester, Yorkist prince, warrior, and king for two years. In the end that has too little to do with the theatrical Richard, our R3, beyond what may be written in program notes.

As there is so little new evidence beyond the bones, I doubt there will be new scholarship so much as continued attempts by the Richard III Society to put him in shining armor. That matters not, for Richard will always be a duality: historical person about whom we know too little, and the blood-dripping Machiavel on stage. Long may the latter reign.

Cheers,

Al Magary

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------

From: Herbert Weil <
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Date: February 5, 2013 11:29:27 PM EST

Subject: Poor Richard

I do not know the author so cannot propose it for SHAKSPER.

Poor Richard

Zounds! Forget I ever did lament

That fabled time of discontent.

Though Avon cur had me reviled,

I’m even now the more defiled.

This disinterment is far worse

Than anything in blankest verse

Cursed exposure, even ruder

Than unhorsing by a Tudor.

Bolingbroke, he had his way,

But now I’m naught but DNA.

My backbone, steeled ‘gainst War of Roses,

Only speaks of scoliosis.

Ah me! Eternal woes beset

Poor Richard Three, Plantagenet.

Oh pestilence! Who madst me fester

In a car park smack in Leicester?

Herb Weil

Prof. Emeritus

University of Manitoba

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------

From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: February 6, 2013 2:36:21 AM EST

Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3

I have heard that the remains of Henry VI have been found under the sports pitch in Wapping, only about 1000 yards from the Tower; but they were in three parts.

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ton Hoenselaars <
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